Alphabet and other giants are betting that the future of real estate is robotic

It seemed like an impossible idea. In 2014, an MIT project called CityHome proposed a sleek robotic armoire that would live inside your apartment, amplifying a tiny footprint with Jetsonian features like a kitchen and bed that could slide out from seemingly nowhere. It was neat, sure, but experiments like this rarely come to fruition as real products.

Except CityHome did. It became a company called Ori that began selling units to real estate developers a few years ago. Shortly thereafter, it introduced a couple of consumer-facing models, shipping robo-furnishings right to your door. This year Ori announced its biggest news yet: a deal inked with Ikea to offer customizable furnishings to customers in the future.

Today, Ori is announcing $20 million in series B funding, raised from new investors including the Alphabet-owned smart city company Sidewalk Labs and the Ingka Group, the part of Ikea’s sprawling empire responsible for licensing most Ikea stores and building integrated shopping centers. A third new Ori investor, Geolo Capital, is known for hospitality investments, some of which were recently acquired by Hyatt.

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What it all adds up to? Ori is working with major new investors from three major real estate sectors—from city planning, retail, and hospitality—which could potentially become clients themselves. And for Ori, a company interested in changing the very nature of buildings with robotics, those relationships could inform the future of its products.